The Buffalo News

According to studies, 57.5 percent of adults in Erie County are overweight or obese, while 25 percent of children in New York State are obese. In spite of these alarming statistics, the Tonawanda Town Board just approved Read More…

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

How disappointing that school leaders from the Webster, Le Roy and Gates Chili districts chose to criticize Comptroller DiNapoli’s audit of competitive foods, rather than absorb the facts. The audit revealed each of these districts failed to follow its own nutrition policy. Read More…

Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Chambliss, and members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, thank you for the opportunity to testify today about the need for reforming nutrition for children in school.  As a concerned mother and director of the New York State Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Alliance (NYSHEPA), I’ve been working to improve standards on both the local and state level since March 2002 - that’s when my then 10-year-old daughter came home from school and excitedly announced that she’d won a fitness contest in gym class. Her prize? A candy bar. Read More…

The Buffalo News

Gov. David Paterson’s bold proposal to add an 18 percent tax on sugary soft drinks makes a lot of sense. Soft drink manufacturers have spent millions to market their products to be consumed like water - anytime, anywhere and in excessive amounts. Read More…

Syracuse Post Standard

Gov. David Paterson’s proposal to add a tax on sugary soft drinks makes sense on many levels. Read More…

New York Journal News

I agree with columnist Noreen O’Donnell (Dec. 20 column) that we should give Gov. Paterson’s soft-drink tax a try. Sugary soft drinks have been pinpointed repeatedly in medical studies as the biggest contributors to our obesity epidemic. Read More…

You do your best to teach your children about eating well, but when they’re at school, they’re on their own. Is your voice in their head when they are deciding what to spend their lunch money on? The school may offer a hot meal with fruits and vegetables, but many also have vending machines full of junk-food favorites. All that junk makes it harder to feed our kids healthfully.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) requires that the lunches sold in the cafeteria meet specific nutrition guidelines, but those guidelines don’t apply to foods sold outside of meals, such as through vending machines, a la carte lines, and school stores.

The standards for those foods haven’t been updated since the 1970s and no longer make sense from the standpoint of science or kids’ health. What the USDA considers “junk food” doesn’t include many foods that most moms consider junk food. The current standard prohibits the sale of seltzer water, breath mints, and chewing gum, yet allows the sale of cookies, snack cakes, and candy bars.

The sale of junk food in schools undermines parents’ and schools’ efforts to teach children good nutrition. It is also fueling the obesity epidemic. Over the last two decades, rates of obesity have tripled in children and adolescents, and that increase has been linked to soda intake and the sale of junk food in schools.

A key way to get junk food and soda out of schools is for Congress to update the national nutrition standards for foods sold outside of meals. The Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act would do just that. The bill has the support of the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity (NANA), a coalition that includes over 300 national, state, and local health and education organizations like the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and National PTA.

But members of Congress also need to hear from moms who support this legislation. Visit www.schoolfoods.org for more information and a link that makes it easy to write to Congress in support of getting junk food out of schools.

For more information contact us at nutritionpolicy@cspinet.org.